Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Great balls of fire

Our flowering quince is finally flowering. We have two of them, and they are gorgeous. They are covered in bright orangish-red flowers and from a distance they really do look like great balls of fire.

I haven't done anything to care for them in the three years we've had this place. I haven't even made an effort to water them! Yet, they've doubled in size. I never had time to figure out what to do with the quince fruit, so I left them on the branches and I guess the birds ate them.

I'm sad that they look so pretty this year, because this is the last spring they'll bloom. See, they're in the way of progress. More specifically, they are located in the heart of what will become the horse pasture, and from my reading I've found that they can be poisonous. My horse, Mickey the Moron as he's come to be known in these parts, is already an accident-prone idiot, so I have no doubt that he'd eat them and get violently ill. Not violently ill enough to die, just violently ill enough to rack up another $1,000 or so in vet bills. He's done that pretty much each year of his life, and I'd like this coming year to be as vet-bill-free as possible. So the quince have to go. I let them bloom, for old time's sake, but when they are done blooming they will go to quince heaven.

The other sad thing about the placement of the horse pasture (on our quite limited plot of land) is that this purple lilac is also in the way.

This one really makes me sad. Does anyone out there have any experience trying to transplant lilacs? It appears to be many years old (maybe 10?) so I'm not sure how well it would handle being dug up and moved. I don't have a place in mind to relocate it, but if I could salvage even part of it, maybe I can plant it in the yard on the side of the house. Any suggestions?